On Saturday night, March 15, 2008 in the Great Lakes metropolis of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a young Yamaha factory supercross rider named Josh Hill won the premier class main event before 60,000 Midwest fans, and in doing so, powered to a remarkable fifth overall in that year’s AMA Supercross Series. 11 years later - and a whole lot of main events, National Championship motos and a well-worn path scattered with injuries, broken bones and broken bike parts behind him - one Hill of Portland, Oregon, is ready, steady, go for tonight’s Moto X Step Up competition inside U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis. Chilled-out, in good spirits, yet still wearing that fierce competitiveness that made him a world class racer on his nylon jersey sleeve, Hill is going to throw everything he has over that Step Up bar/Quarter Pipe come prime time on ESPN. Down in the concrete catacombs of the U.S. Bank sports venue and thinking stuff through, we ran into the 30 year-old, pushed his gear bag out of the way, pulled up a folding chair and started throwing questions at him. Ever the good sport, Hill got us up to speed on all things X.
Yeas, we have competition tonight. Step Up is this evening and we have and we have QuarterPipe High Air practice in a little bit, so we’re ready to go.
Oh, I’m way stoked to be here. I kind of bounce back-and-forth between doing race events and doing the free ride and if you can call what I do freestyle motocross, I’ve learned and done a few tricks. Anything in this environment and being around these people, I feel at home.
Yeah, it’s just a fun group of people. right when I moved to California I kind of started hanging out and riding with some of the freestyle guys like Todd Potter and Twitch and Taka. I mean, for me, these guys doing the freestyle stuff, most of the time they just love riding dirt bikes. I kind of feel like I’m also in that category. I love riding dirt bikes – whether it’s racing or jumping or whatever the case, two wheels is what I love doing.
Yeah, to me, it’s just life. I just love doing it. I wouldn’t train all this for anything.
Yeah, that was kind of the way we did it back then. We’d go ride at the Yamaha test track, and then when we were done, we’d go ride pit bikes or grab our production bikes and go to Starwest or Perris at nighttime. We’d be doing two-a-days just because we wanted to do it. It was fun. When you’re riding that much every single day, you just get that much more in-tune with what you’re doing.
Yeah… It obviously didn’t go the way I wanted it to go. But for me, and growing up watching guys like [Jeremy] McGrath, he’d always go out and do things on his bike. And after McGrath, you had Carmichael. Even RC, he was such a serious racer, he’d be doing tricks like No-Footed Can-Cans and stuff. Then Pastrana came around and started back flipping and doing all this crazy stuff. For me, I wanted to be able to win races and backflip and make the crowd go nuts. I wanted to be one of those guys. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out and, at least when you look back to 2010, it cost me my racing career. I mean it made my racing career not as bright as it could have been, but you know I just wish I would have landed it. I think I could have landed it and I didn’t.
Yeah, I blew it, you know? It happens. You take risks every day when you’re riding supercross. Man, in whatever you’re doing, you’re taking risks. I guess what I did back then would be unnecessary risk in a lot of peoples’ eyes, but it was the past that I wanted to go down. I just though, how cool would it be if I could be the dude to win races and do backflips and doing all sorts of cool stuff? I think if I would have pulled it off, it would have prolonged my career.
Yeah, we’ll see. In Step Up, it’s always something that I have always wanted to do and I never got invited to do it. This is the first year that I got in to do it. I’m really excited for this tonight. I have not really hit the ramp many times, but I’ve just been riding like crazy. I just showed up a little bit behind the guys at first, but as I have gotten more comfortable, I’m kind of creeping up to big heights. We’ll kind of see. I’ll only have a short hour on the jump, but every time I hit it I feel better and we get the bike more figured out. Then there is figuring out the technique. Man, a lot goes into this. We’ll kind of just see how it goes. The more we put into this, I feel the more we’ll get out of it. Bring it all on.
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